2 robbery suspects charged; Ilion schools return to normal

Friday

Sep 26, 2008 at 12:01 AMSep 26, 2008 at 12:59 AM

Two people have been charged following the armed robbery of the Medicine Shoppe in Ilion late Friday morning, and security precautions at three village schools were lifted after their arrest, police and school officials said.

ROCCO LaDUCA

Village police have charged two men in the armed robbery of the Medicine Shoppe late this morning, officials said.

Anthony Ficchi, 17, of South Bellinger Street, Herkimer, and Steven Trevor, 22, of East German Street, are facing charges of first-degree robbery and second-degree burglary, Ilion Police Chief Tim Parisi said Friday afternoon.

Ficchi and Trevor also have been linked to several other crimes in the area, including burglaries in Ilion, New Hartford and Little Falls, Parisi said. Police, however, did not provide any further details of those crimes.

Witnesses reported that the suspects possessed a long gun during the robbery, which occurred around 11:30 a.m. at the Central Avenue store, Parisi said.

The suspects were arrested after a search warrant was executed on the vehicle allegedly used during the commission of the crime, Parisi said. They were taken into custody without incident following a collaborative effort by Ilion police, Mohawk police, Frankfort town police, Herkimer police, the Herkimer County Sheriff's Department and New York State Police.

Both men were arraigned in Ilion Village Court and sent to the Herkimer County jail in lieu of $100,000 cash bail or $200,000 bond, Parisi said.

Earlier in the afternoon, security precautions at three schools in Ilion were lifted as soon as the two suspects were taken into custody, school officials said.

Police advised the school districts around 1 p.m. that they could reopen, school officials said.

Remington Elementary School in Ilion was in lockdown status following the robbery at the Medicine Shoppe, school district officials said.

Two other schools – Barringer Road Elementary School and the Ilion Junior-Senior High School – were in a more limited lock-in status as village police investigated the 11:30 a.m. robbery, officials said.

The schools took the security precautions on the advice of police, school officials said.

“When we go into a lockdown, we’re trying to minimize the opportunity this individual would have to come into the school or and to minimize the contact our kids may have with this person,” said Kenneth Long, business manager for the Ilion Central School District.

Remington school on East North Street went into lockdown around 11:30 a.m. because of its close proximity to the scene of the robbery on Central Avenue, Long said. In such a lockdown, nobody is allowed into or out of the school and students are confined to their classrooms.

At the Barringer Road school and the high school, however, students and staff were allowed to enter the building, but nobody was allowed to leave, Long said. Many high school students are allowed to leave the building for lunch, so the school did not want to prevent them from returning, he said.

“Life is going on as normal in those buildings,” Long said of the two schools that were in lock-in status.